A Hot Toddy was originally a hot tea with added alcohol (usually whiskey, bourbon, or scotch). The name comes from a toddy (or palm toddy) that is an alcoholic drink made from fermented sap from palm trees. The name was brought over to Europe (mostly Britian) through the East India Trading Company, and because of this company's close ties with the tea trade, the British thought that the "toddy" being brought over was just an alcoholic version of tea. Today many Hot Toddy recipes don't include the tea at all, and are more just a combination of lemon, spices (usually cinnamon, brown sugar, nutmeg, etc.), alcohol (again usually from the whiskey family), and hot water. It is actually very similar to grog where grog tends to have the same ingredients except that it uses rum instead of whiskey as its alcoholic base.